Where’s Dems’ Push Back On GOP Candidates’ Accusing Them Of Infanticide And Socialism

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The socialism vs capitalism GOP talking point:

It should be a piece of cake for Democratic candidates to counter the GOP talking point that Democrats want a country steeped in socialism.

I believe in the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) philosophy. All the democrats have to do, is define the GOP candidates’ version of socialism as President Truman did in 1952.

“Socialism is a scare word they’ve hurled at every advance the people have made. Socialism is what they called public power, social security, deposit insurance, and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for anything that helps all people. –Harry Truman, 1952”

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As per a 2/20/ 2019 NY Magazine article, Trump Calls the Democratic Party Socialist. He’s Lying.” by Jonathan Chait:

The official entrance of Bernie Sanders into the presidential race was greeted gleefully by the entire Republican Establishment. The White House has ramped up its message that the 2020 campaign is a choice between the whole of American history (as represented by Trump) and socialism — which it defines as Venezuelan-style government control combined with repression of dissent. Trump’s bizarre State of the Union declaration, “America will never be a socialist country,” has become his unofficial campaign motto.

“This messaging strategy has been enabled by a wildly exaggerated sense of the Democratic Party’s leftward shift. The Democratic Party is still not “socialist” in any meaningful sense of the term, and to the extent socialism has exerted any influence upon it, it is not of the Venezuelan variety.”

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“At the root of this fairy tale lie some tiny nuggets of truth. Bernie Sanders is an idiosyncratic bridge between Old Left fellow traveler and the mainstream liberalism of the Democratic Party. As a younger — or, I suppose, less old — politician, Sanders routinely praised communist leaders in places like Cuba and Nicaragua. Conservatives are gleefully dredging up old clips of Sanders praising the Soviet Union and even defending bread lines.”

“Meanwhile, a NY Times account of Sanders’s influence begins, “Do you remember the old days of the Democratic Party? Universal health care was controversial. Boasting about taxing the rich was political suicide. And socialism was a dirty word.” In fact, the last two Democratic presidents openly tried to achieve universal health insurance, and both successfully raised taxes on the rich and boasted about it.”

“Socialism may not be a “dirty word,” exactly. But very few Democrats want to be associated with it — in part because it remains highly unpopular among the public at large.”

Illustration: Aaron Blake/The Washington Post

“Possible Democratic presidential nominees Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Beto O’Rourke have all explicitly disavowed the socialist label. Last year, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bluntly told one questioner that the Democratic Party is capitalist.”

“Trump’s campaign has given Democrats an easy way to position themselves in the center. All they need to do is say they believe in a role for free markets and reject socialism.”

“Parties move slowly and tend to change their character over long periods of time. The entrance of far-left policy demanders in the Democratic Party is a very notable development that might lead to important changes over the long run. In the short run, the party is mostly the same. And Trump’s notion that his reelection is all that stands between the United States and socialism is nothing more than a paranoid fantasy.”

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The Abortion Issue

Late term abortion procedures are unpopular and controversial with the public, even though there are sound medical reasons where physicians have to perform it. Late term abortions are extremely rare because the reasons for them are due to very unusual circumstances. But that doesn’t keep the GOP candidates from referring to late-term abortions as infanticide.

Here’s an example of why a woman would undergo late term abortion: rewire.news

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As per the 4/29/2019 PolitiFact analysis, “Donald Trump repeats, falsely, that doctors, mothers decide to execute live babies after birth” by Jon Greenberg:

President Donald Trump often weaves his opposition to late-term abortion into his speeches at rallies around the country. His April 27 event in Green Bay, Wis., followed his pattern of twisting the actual practice and circumstances of a rare event.

“The baby is born,” Trump said. “The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby, they wrap the baby beautifully. And then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.”

This is a distortion.

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Cases of late-term abortions, which are uncommon, involve either a pregnancy that poses an immediate threat to the life of the mother, or infants with abnormalities so severe that they are unlikely to live more than a few days. In the even rarer situations when the baby emerges alive, parents would decide whether to ask their doctors to make any and all efforts to keep breathing.

Medical researchers describe this as a decision whether to resuscitate the baby. Trump cast this as a decision whether to execute it.

By practice and law, living infants receive care.

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“Gretchen Ely, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo’s School of Social Work and a board member for Social Workers for Reproductive Justice told us in February, “The notion that anyone supports executing infants after birth is preposterous.”

“Among other federal and state statutes that already establish the duty to provide care, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 established that federal legal protections that applied to “persons” also covered children born at any stage of development, including after an abortion.”

Women protest the controversial "heartbeat bill" in Ohio, or HB258, which bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, in Columbus on Dec. 12, 2018. — Sopa Images / Getty Images

“Right now, the Democratic Party candidates vying for elected posts in 2020 elections, have the upper hand when it comes to the abortion issue, thanks to GOP legislators in states like Alabama, where they have passed laws which ban abortions even in cases where a woman or child has been the victim of rape and/ or incest and where physicians caught performing this medical procedure would be subject to penalties up to 99 years in prison.”

“This Alabama law will be challenged in the courts but its supporters are expecting it to reach the US Supreme Court where they believe the conservative judges will go against precedent which protects women’s rights to be able to access legally performed abortions.”

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See what Senator Kamala Harris who is vying to become the 2020 Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, tweeted:

Kamala Harris‏Verified account @SenKamalaHarris

Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio & now Alabama – these anti-abortion bills aren’t a coincidence, it’s a concerted effort by the GOP to overturn Roe v. Wade. I’m sick and tired of this outright assault on women’s bodily autonomy – we will fight this with everything we’ve got.

15 May 2019

Aimee Allison‏@aimeeallison

This is the most important thing to understand for those attacking our rights in Georgia, Alabama, Virginia, Florida, Ohio: “They will only be swayed by the permanent loss of power.” @staceyabrams

Stacey AbramsVerified account@staceyabrams

I know the men who did this, and they will not respond to reason, morality or economic harm. They will only be swayed by the permanent loss of power. These bills are cropping up across the country, but only Georgia has the film industry as central to the economy.

Show this thread

16 May 2019

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Democrats can argue that they’re true pro-lifers as they are the ones talking about Americans having a greater access to affordable, high-quality universal healthcare as a right, and who genuinely care about reducing the US maternal and infant mortality rates which for years, have been higher than any other rich developed country.

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See: Access To Affordable Healthcare Will Still Be Number 1 Bread And Butter Issue For 2020 Elections

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One comment

Keith says:

May 18, 2019 at 9:28 am

Gronda, good post. Two comments. I agree the term “pro-birth” is more apt than “pro-life” due to stances on more gun control, environment protection, climate change action, affordable health care, etc. I also believe we must make readily available birth control, family planning, and sex education (including how to say no and no means no), as these tools greatly reduce abortions, healthcare costs and poverty.

As for socialism, we are a fettered capitalist economy with socialist underpinnings. If we were pure capitalism, Donald Trump would not havd any money with six bankruptcies.
The fettered term includes: no insider trading, no collusion, no interlocking boards, no monopolies, etc. Socialism includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Workers Comp, Unemployment benefits, food stamps and yes, even bankruptcy protection.

The President and GOP want to paint with that term, equating socialism with communism. The more intellectual discussion would be do we have the right mix, as the “haves” have a much larger share than the “have-nots” rivaling the Robber Baron period in our country. Keith

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